My Lightning hero nominee won!! I had never heard this story before. According to Dave, he takes the hero to the locker room and they meet the coach. The coach puts information about the hero on the white board and the team is required to read about the hero before the game.

26. I got a lot of requests on Sunday for updates on prospects. More of that than anything else. So I emailed two NHL guys who have great AHL eyes and asked them to let me know who they liked. They weren't shy. Both agreed on (NHL team in parenthesis): Nino Niederreiter (NYI), Tomas Tatar (DET), Jason Zucker (MIN), Justin Schultz (EDM), Oliver Ekman-Larsson (PHO), Richard Panik & Tyler Johnson (TB), Jake Gardiner (TOR).

In an email distributed Friday morning, the Forum will essentially close on Dec. 20 and reopen on Jan. 2 – although the ticket office as well as the team merchandise store will remain open during regular business hours.

During the holiday shutdown, all affected employees – approximately 150 people are currently on staff – will continue to receive their regular wages, with the time off not counting toward their allotted vacation benefits. Of course, if a new collective bargaining agreement is reached between the league and the players' union before then, the extended time off will be cut short.

"Our ownership believed that an extended paid holiday at this time would be a nice reward for the employees that have worked so hard to transform the organization on and off the ice over the past two years,'' team spokesman Bill Wickett said.